Revision as of 11:41, September 17, 2013

"Are you a wizard or not?"

The title of this article is conjectural. Although it is based on canonical information, the actual name is conjecture and may be supplanted at any time by additional information released from canonical sources. If this occurs, please move this page to the appropriate title.

"It was as though Wormtail had flipped over a stone, and revealed something ugly, slimy and blind — but worse, a hundred times worse. The thing Wormtail had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that Harry had never seen anything less like a child. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face — no child alive ever had a face like that — was flat and snake-like, with gleaming red eyes. The thing seemed almost helpless..."

The rudimentary body potion is a potion likely invented by Lord Voldemort. It was prepared for him by Peter Pettigrew and was used to create Voldemort's rudimentary body in order to sustain him while he awaited his return to power. Two of its main ingredients were unicorn blood and Nagini's snake venom.[1] The drinker must continuously drink the potion every few hours in order to maintain the little health that they have regained.

Contents

History

The potion and its associated rituals were able to create a rudimentary body for Lord Voldemort's disembodied soul-fragment to be directly transferred into. The body was small, about the size of an average baby, and shriveled with red and scaly skin, but still retained some of Lord Voldemort's true body's distinctive characteristics, such as his snake-like nostrils and red, slitted eyes. This body's physical abilities were extremely limited and while in this form, Voldemort needed Wormtail to transport him from place to place and tend to him constantly. His magical powers were also greatly reduced in this small and a bit vulnerable state, although he was still powerful enough to cast an effective Killing Curse as well as turn Nagini into a Horcrux at some point.

This body was used until Voldemort, with the aid of Peter Pettigrew and Barty Crouch Jr., was able to create the ancient Regeneration Potion to finally restore him to his true body and abilities. Prior to that, the body that the potion provided Voldemort was so gruesome, it revolted both Frank Bryce and Harry Potter greatly, and caused Pettigrew to flinch when seeing it, and shudder when holding it.[2]

Behind the scenes

It is unknown how Voldemort managed to take this potion before acquiring his temporary body, as he was still in a mangled spectral state before the first time being fed the potion. This was a similar case in how the ghostNearly Headless Nick partook the Mandrake Restorative Draught. However, given Voldemort's power of possession, he may have been occupying the body of someone or something in order to take the potion.

In the book Harry describes Voldemort's form as something one-hundred times worse than slimy, ugly and blind. But in the movie he asks Barty Crouch Jr. to see the Dark Mark on his arm. This is also supported in the book with Voldemort's comment "I see you flinch when you look at me."

The deformed body that Voldemort inhabited through this potion resembles his mangled soul when Harry was in Limbo. This is because one's soul is reflected by the physical body, and vice versa, as ghosts are.